Buon Anno 2013!!

Last night, after eating more than I thought was humanly possible (again!) and drinking copious amounts of prosecco, we decided to venture up to Piazza Garibaldi on the Gianicolo hill to ring in the new year. It seemed like a brilliant idea, a panoramic view of the city at midnight, but I can say with certainty that I will never do that again. The reason: I value my life.

Italians don’t appear to have any regulations on the types of fireworks available for purchase, and even this pyromaniac was unnerved by the intensity and frequency of explosions. Fireworks were being launched in every direction, even from the windows of apartment buildings 3-6 stories above, which made it incredibly unsafe to walk in the street. Open spaces, which I normally seek out to get away from the crowd, now seemed like minefields. You’d have to be stupid to walk across one, that was where most people lit/threw their fireworks. And shortly before the countdown to midnight, I saw a green flame streak above our heads and land in a group of people under the statue of Garibaldi. They were able to put the fire out, but I couldn’t tell if anyone was badly injured.

We were a group of 7 in a crowd of thousands, so the odds were in our favor, but it definitely wasn’t the sort of risk I like to take. But now that I’m safe at home and the worst of my battle scars is a throbbing headache, I can say that it was absolutely worth it. Firework shows in every piazza and neighborhood in the city, bursts of color for as far as the eye could see. Definitely a once in a lifetime view.